After the Ponds
by Spirit in the Dark
Summary: Almost every single companion has rammed home the fact that he should never, ever travel alone. The Doctor needs someone with him, an internal compass that will keep him straight, that will make sure he keeps saving people and adding to the good in the universe. One day in Manhattan set him into a downward spiral- and the only person who can stop it is himself.
1. About the Ponds

The police box wheezed into existence in a deserted alleyway in the midst of a lightly falling rain, the pavement shining with a thin layer of water. The ripples fluctuated as the TARDIS materialised, familiar noise piercing through the steady rhythm of droplets as time and space bent to accommodate the impossibility.

The bluest blue shone as rivulets of water ran down the box, out of place in the scene of worn asphalt and faded posters. For a brief moment, it was breathtaking- a glowing star suspended in endless space- and then, almost as if it adopted a covering of the dismal air, the box settled, almost becoming part of the city. Almost, just like her madman. Not quite right, never fitting anywhere. They were born and grown to excel, not blend in.

One of the doors opened inward, revealing a man odd in every sense of the term. He filled up more space than he should, almost seeming to wear his importance etched in his very skin. The man carried himself like a youth, unlined face contrasting sharply with the alien gaze that came over him time and time again, sometimes ebbing in a second and sometimes lingering like a dark cloud. A dizzying array of space stretched out behind him, warm lighting reflecting off metal and shining through glass. It highlighted and emphasised the scene from a fairytale, frozen in an instant but still so, so alive. His hand rested on the edge of the still unopened door, curling softly around painted blue wood in a curiously emotional gesture akin to the motion one would attribute to the holding of a hand for a friend that was more than a friend. One that was always there, always constant through the passage of time. As much of him as he was of her.

A leather shoe stepped just outside the box with a decisive squelch, followed closely by its twin. The sound was lighter than one would expect, betraying an odd sort of grace in his movements. The Doctor glanced up, sharp green eyes taking in the lightly cloudy sky and following a droplet of water as it fell, splattering onto the ground and sending speckles of water into the air for a brief moment. With thin raindrops falling lightly over his shoulders, he inhaled, nostrils flaring for a brief second. A moment passed, then he turned, stepping back inside.

"Sorry, old girl," he murmured under his breath by habit as he brought the door closed after him with a decisive click after spotting the light outlines of his shoes in water. Once the door closed, it seemed to keep out the normal, sectioning the world off into distinct pockets of usual and spectacular. He was, predictably, usually in the more unusual type. "It's raining. Amy, Rory, have you got an umbrella?"

"I think we took one from King George's Zygon maid?" Rory frowned, leaning against the barrier with his wife beside him, her red hair making her seem like part of the place. And it was- with time, Amy had almost become as much of the TARDIS as... well, anything. He could barely imagine going on without the Ponds, and he was sure that feeling would only increase with time. "I saw Amy put it under the seat after running from the robot Emus," the boy said after a brief moment.

"We used it to hold off the alien roses later," Amy shrugged, looking under the seat anyway and not seeming very surprised when it proved absent. "It probably got shredded while you were still climbing out of the prison with the little amphibians."

"Is there still one in the pool?" the Doctor sprang to the ground, glancing around then pushing himself back upright again with no sign of any umbrellas anywhere. "From the banquet last month, with the sentient acid wine."

"I lost the pool- well, the contents, so I imagine so?" Rory volunteered. Amy nodded in assent, leaning on the console while being careful not to touch any buttons. That's already created enough havoc for a lifetime the last time it happened, and the time before that. Rory was still watching her rather suspiciously since the last incident, as he got the brunt of whatever happened afterward. The Doctor had tried to explain, but what Amy and he got were essentially two words: timey-wimey.

"Alright, I'll get it." the Doctor sighed, resigning himself to scouring his squash courts for a mildly acid-stained umbrella floating in the remaining contents of the pool. Tough and really quite corrosive, but slow and neutralised by chlorine. They had run through the corridors, peeking into rooms for the pool until the Doctor finally found it, flinging the umbrella into the deep end and then rushing back to the console room to get them out of the mess. They had landed upside-down on the lip of a bubbling volcano filled with some rather cross pyroviles and it had all gone downhill from there.

Literally.

He turned, as if just remembering something important he should say. Something of crucial importance that would result in disaster and had if he hadn't said it- though, in retrospect, some of the unmitigated disaster happened anyway even if he said it. Just to be safe, though, he said the three words anyway before leaving them in the console room. "Don't wander off. And Ponds, don't touch any buttons."

The Doctor turned toward his room while still looking for the pool, opening the door just to be sure and then feeling the ceiling for any sign of water leakage in case it's right above his room. He watched dispassionately as a singular silver object on his desk turned itself on, beaming a bright blue which condensed into a hologram. It was grainy, but judging from the connection speed and type it was intentionally obscuring her features. It showed a female with only the head and shoulders showing, around his height. She had cropped blonde hair and some sort of coat with a bright yellow strap peeking from a lifted corner of her coat- a stranger, perhaps, or someone long gone. Had he not been on his last, he would have suspected his future.

"Doctor," she said quietly, knowing she already had his attention by the way his eyes focused on her, almost trying to pierce through her despite the woman being about as far as it gets from where he is. "We need to talk. About the Ponds."


	2. The Bystander Effect

"Have you ever seen something beautiful crumple up and die, Amelia Pond?" A man asked in a hoarse whisper, leaning forward with eyebrows knitted together and all the sincerity in the universe. He wore round glasses that didn't do much for his vision and a tweed coat with brown pads at the elbows, and was fiddling idly with a silken bow tie in his hands. Watching the sleeping Amelia Pond of eight years, he bowed his head.

"You still think your magic Doctor is coming back to save you," he remarked in an almost casual tone, smiling drily. His eyes wandered past the room where she had grown up, past sketches and painted paper dolls of a version of himself that was no more. The idealised version of him she thought he was has been etched onto every stroke of the brush, every crease of paper not presenting the man who didn't quite know who he was, but a hero, a good wizard coming to save the day. Amelia Pond's perfect Doctor, who was coming to take her from her life into a fairy tale. A look came over his face, old and weary and strange in the features of a young man who felt older than he seemed. After the same set of memories inhabited so many separate bodies, at one point it became difficult to find his own voice. "And then you'll find him again when you're nineteen, travel together at twenty-one. He gives you back your parents but he took them away in the first place. Destroyed your daughter, turned her murderous and evil. A sociopath who's older than you. And then you get stuck decades in the past, not able to reach out not because your magic Doctor can't, but because you'll stay with your husband again and it will kill your magic Doctor and-"

He had seen the universe in all its raging infinite majesty and laughed in the face of a million atrocities, but no matter what he said, regardless of whatever he told himself, loss had always been able to stun him, to render him speechless. He closed his eyes for a brief second and stood, pressing a soft kiss to the girl's temple and tucking his bow tie under her pillow, not that she would know its significance.

Exiting the room, a gentle smile lighted his features for a second as he closed the door behind him. The leather soles of his shoes made barely any noise as they receded, stopping at the kitchen where one year ago his younger self had visited. The man walked toward the fridge, hesitating for a moment, and then pulled the top refrigerator door open. There, right behind the chicken, was a box containing fish fingers. He didn't need to look for the custard below that, having visited it so many times already. Amelia had kept fish fingers and custard in her fridge for the rest of her years in that house.

He headed out, closing the door silently behind him as he walked toward his TARDIS, the old girl slightly scratched and dented but still perfectly functional. He told himself it was just his imagination as the quiet beeps and whirls became muted, less frequent. With the absence of the Ponds, everything was emptier, darker.

The man who stood in front of the TARDIS was none of that, with a wonderful life ahead of him. The Doctor had only just begun truly valuing his companions, caught in the middle of his story. "Hello, Doctor," the Doctor greeted tensely, fingers dancing restlessly by his sonic screwdriver, hovering in the air.

"Not anymore," he replied, licking his dried lips, and watched the Doctor flinch as though struck.

"You've analysed every possibility," the Doctor accused, alien green eyes piercing through the night like a predator and meeting the exact same shade. "And you know exactly how I'd react." That voice, so much like his own but oh so alien, the rich tone so mesmerising coming from his own mouth, the infinite _disgust_ that so easily carried through the air and struck fear into his enemies.

This was why he started in the first place, sitting by while civilisations crumbled and burned, where things could have been so different, and watched. It was intoxicating.

A mirthless smile stretched his lips as he regarded his younger self. "Yes," he admitted, finally moving forward toward himself. Toward his TARDIS, seemingly looking _past_ himself but both of them knew that was not the case, knew each other knew that they knew and so it surprised none of them when, without being moved, they stopped, one leaning on the side of the TARDIS and the ever so moral Doctor to the side, standing straight-backed and still staring at him with a sort of terrified wonder he was oh-so-familiar with.

He waited for the Doctor to speak- it was his moment, centuries of life had trained him for this- and the Doctor didn't disappoint. "You remember why you chose to be the Doctor- one of your defining moments," the man with a bow-tie but none of the implied humour said, darkness flooding his features as a cloud began drifting over the full moon. The other man's smile froze, and he began pushing himself into a proper standing position.

"You remember," he accused, staring at his future with the same level of disgust, voice still steady. Young, energetic, purposeful. "You recall the time you stopped. That one, terrible regeneration you don't talk about. Not to your companions. Not to the Ponds. Not to anyone, not even yourself."

The silence was deadly, beautiful in the calm before the Oncoming Storm. For a moment, it felt like the Earth itself grew silent, stopping in its orbit with the sunlight simply vanishing. Time itself seemed to stop moving except for the two of them. And they continued their conversation.

"Two," he began, stepping forward with a hurricane of terrible purpose, bringing himself in line to the TARDIS, half shaded by the box with the other half lit by the dim moonlight. His features in shadow, but the expression on his own face predictable.

"Point," he continued, enunciating the last syllable carefully, properly. The not-Doctor hadn't noticed when the TARDIS simply stopped translating, when they both slipped into proper spoken Gallifreyan, into its melodic syllables that twisted into horrible accusations, each word burning into his hearts. They slowed as he realised what he was saying, what he had to be saying and what he never, ever wanted to hear again. He stepped backward, right heel gently rustling through the fresh green grass of Amelia Pond's backyard.

"Four," the terrible voice continued, each word punctuated with a clean silence the noises of the night filled, having almost gone silent with the terrible words he was saying.

"Seven," he finished, at the same time his future self, wearing the same face, whispered the word in the noble, musical syllables that carried in the wind beautifully, tragically.

"Go back to your timeline," the Doctor who was not the Doctor finally whispered hoarsely, closing his eyes for a brief moment. The thrill within those four forbidden words that carried up his spine electrifyingly was wonderful and terrible at the same time, a glimpse into eternity.

"Show me," the younger finally said tiredly, lines of arrogance gone from his posture, his voice, but still as determined as ever. "You know what."

The light smile that played around his features vanished as quickly as they came as the elder's words were interrupted before they began, the horrifying implications twisting his stomach into a knot and making his breath hitch in his throat for a moment before he gained control of his breathing again. Calm, measured.

The air rushing into his pulmonary tubes did not go unnoticed. His counterpart raised an eyebrow at it silently, waiting.

"No."

"D-" the Doctor paused, not knowing quite what to call himself. "What have you lost?" he finally asked, eyes filled with confusion and horror and yes, a little bit of fear.

"Spoilers," he whispered, reaching for the door handle.

"No, don't you dare play that," the Doctor said, fingers suddenly clenched over his sonic screwdriver, and locked the door.

He simply regarded himself with half-amusement, lips turned up into a smile.

"What- Who- are you?" The Doctor finally asked, tucking his sonic screwdriver back into his pocket.

"A bystander," he replied. But it didn't sound right, never would replace the Doctor.

"If you want to tell him," he finally said, ironically saluting himself with two fingers while unlocking the TARDIS door again, "feel free to do so."

The Doctor's hair blew back as the TARDIS dematerialised, words on the tip of his tongue. He did not dare speak them, probably never would.

 _How many died because of you? How many more?_


	3. The Bowtie Limitation

Time always tries to patch itself together, rigging together paradoxes with a bit of help and patching holes in existence so that most people have no idea it was broken in the first place. However, the Doctor always senses when something's wrong with the fabric of time (it's not actually a fabric, envision a five-dimensional double-overlay loop with fluctuating strands, but even some Time Lords have some trouble with that the first go), like buzzing in his skull. The more powerful and longer it's been there, the worse it is.

First, the Doctor had assumed there was something wrong with the TARDIS, but ever since her explosion he's taken great care to check over the systems even more than suggested. Sure, the TARDIS has exploded or died at least half a dozen times before, but it's always been averted, one way or another. Luck has always kept its approximation of an eye on him, after all.

No; five minutes and seventeen seconds after he was supposed to fall asleep, the Doctor was irritated to find that the buzzing had not subsided after a few trips through the Time Vortex. It had increased in a way that was drilling into his mind after an entire day of running around corridors, defusing bombs, and talking down ruthless dictators. All that pent up energy only further amplified the itch, and the Doctor found himself sitting up in his bed, moving over to his closet to find his bowtie. Most of his room was occupied by trinkets and other things. A pile of half-finished machinery lies across his desk and part of his bed- only needing to sleep an hour every twenty-four hours, he never saw the use of spending a lot of effort on his bed, which was stuck in a corner like an afterthought.

Possibilities were whirring feverishly through his mind- perhaps he and the Ponds can go to Gnechuthea-11 after they get up, but the corrosive mists that come sporadically might mean he'll need to bring a few more bowties. He's always meant to visit that child-

He paused, closing his eyes. The humming in his head seemed to have increased since he flung open that closet, and he carefully stopped and just listened for the almost painful source of the hum-whirr that interrupted his sleep, reaching out his hand and finally arriving at a drawer. The Doctor opened his eyes again, glanced at the neat rows of bowties on top, and on a whim ran a hand through the layers of folded cloth- there, a sensation almost like an electric shock.

He took a bowtie out of the drawer- one that was red and shiny and completely resembled- ah. Coiling one end around his hand, the Doctor tapped it against his own bow tie and almost flinched at the release of energy as time ruptured and promptly repaired itself around him. Of course- blinovitch limitation effect, coupled with spatial-temporal fluctuations that transported it there when he was wearing his bowtie, thereby multiplying the effects of the paradox. Stupid Doctor.

He pulled off his own bowtie, comparing the relative ages of the two- the older one seemed noticeably that way, perhaps even a few centuries into the future, but the paradox had to be brought onboard by someone who registered as belonging to the TARDIS, so inhabitants only, and then belonging to the same time with minimum of differences.

Non-time-sensitive inhabitants of the TARDIS, who would have brought a bowtie in without thinking twice- now, that was easy. Except that he absolutely adored his bowties and kept timelines usually as straight as he possibly could. And given the headache he knew he would sustain, he had been very careful with leaving things around the same point of time. That other Gallifreyan sense he never could quite explain to humans without waving his hands around and going 'timeline, layers, BANG!' tingled suspiciously as he analysed probabilities and timelines, and finally with a sigh of resignation he decides a few more hours won't impact him that much.

After all, his head wasn't going to stop ringing.

A couple of wires and some machinery creating a quasi-mechanical triple-dimensional feedback layered loop borrowing the excess energy from the dimensional stabilisers later, the Doctor winces as he touches the bow ties together and begins tracking the source. By this point, he has obtained another bowtie- a darker red this time, but still properly dashing and above all cool.

Now that he's actually doing something the limitation effect isn't as effective on him, and as the Doctor bounds around the TARDIS he feels properly alive. A mystery, a likely conclusion. Bow ties, which are cool. Travelling with his sexy TARDIS, with his companions somewhere inside- what isn't there to love?

There is the tiniest blip as the TARDIS syncs to the paradox and its limitation effects and finally receives the time-varied message sent through her, putting together symbols and lines and pixels to form clear Gallifreyan words, circles intersecting and lines geometric.

 _Make the universe your backyard._

And he remembered a time so long ago, in the void between night and day that comes from time travel. He had said something that was simply an expression of his thoughts, nothing profound, and yet he recalled that time perfectly, from the starlight glinting off her hair to the specific tone he had used. Fond, thoughtful.

 _After a while, you just can't see it._

 _See what?_

 _Everything — I look at a star, and it's just a big ball of burning gas, and I know how it began and I know how it ends... and I was probably there both times. After a while, everything is just stuff. That's the problem; you make all of space and time your backyard, and what do you have? A backyard. But you; you can see it. And when you see it, I see it._

A pause, then a second set of symbols appear, clearly less important but still needed somewhat.

 _Don't travel alone._

There have been so many people, all bright and shining stars burning bright and shaming those around them, and each time they left someone else took their place. He continues fiddling with the circuits, pinpointing the location and extrapolating from there as he waits for the Ponds to wake up. _Hello, Doctor from the future. Are you even still the Doctor?_

The Doctor leans back, eyes half-lidded and waiting for his machine to boot up properly. That's what he gets for never visiting a proper space shop- they're boring anyway, but it also provides lots of time to think and sleep. So he does, setting his internal clock to wake a bit before the Ponds should get up. They demanded a lock for their bedroom- the first couple of times were awkward enough, they claimed, and at least it'll give him pause before sonicking the door.

Ponds, he thought with a fond smile on his lips as he leans back, thoughts not on the buzzing for once- the neutralisation field contained everything well enough- and slept.


End file.
